7326

The Marchioness of Stafford, née Lady Eileen Gwladys Butler 1913

Standing three-quarter length, three-quarter profile to the left, wearing a gold-coloured evening dress, blue cloak with a fur muff over her right arm, matching blue ribbon in her hair, a stormy sky and landscape beyond

Oil on canvas, 186.7 x 109.3 cm (73 ½ x 43 in.)

Inscribed lower right: P.A. de László / 1913. LONDON

Laib L6813(55) / C25(11) Countess [sic] of Stafford

NPG Album 1903-14, p. 13, and Album 1907-13, p. 100

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 92: Eileen Stafford Oct. 19. 12.

Dunrobin Castle, Scotland

This portrait was painted on the occasion of the sitter’s marriage to the Marquess of Stafford. Friends and tenants on the estates of the bridegroom’s father, the Duke of Sutherland, commissioned the portrait as a wedding gift for the Marquess. Sittings began in October 1912 but were interrupted by the departure of the Marchioness to her husband’s shooting camp in Uganda. They resumed in June 1913 and the portrait was completed in time to be hung at the artist’s solo exhibition at Agnew’s which opened 24 June. It was then hung in the great hall at Dunrobin Castle and is currently on display in the library.

De László painted the sitter’s husband in 1914 wearing service dress [3298], in 1920 [2126], and again in 1930 wearing the robes of a Knight of the Thistle [7324].

Lady Eileen Gwladys Butler was born 3 December 1891, the eldest daughter of 7th Earl of Lanesborough. On 11 April 1912, she married Sir George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Marquess of Stafford. He succeeded his father as the 5th Duke of Sutherland in 1913. During the First World War she volunteered as a British Red Cross nurse and Dunrobin castle was offered for use as a military hospital with the Duchess as its Commandant. Nursing was a major interest for the rest of her life and she served as President of the Sutherland Nursing Association and the Sutherland branch of the British Red Cross Society. She was made a Dame of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. From 1916 to 1921 she was Mistress of the Robes to Queen Mary.

She died on 24 August 1943 of an asthmatic condition. The funeral took place at Dunrobin private cemetery near the castle and her husband walked behind the coffin, accompanied by the Earl of Dudley and Viscount Chaplin.^[1] 

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

EXHIBITED:

•Agnew’s, London, Portraits by Philip A. de László, M.V.O., June-July 1913, no. 8

LITERATURE:

•The Illustrated London News, 5 July 1913, p. 20

•Oakley Williams, ed., Selections from the Work of P.A. de László, Hutchinson, London, 1921, p. 181-184, ill. opp. p. 180

•Rutter, 1939, p. 282

•Country Life, vol. L, no. 1287, Saturday 3 September 1921, front cover, ill.

•Woman’s Pictorial, 15 April 1922, p. iii

•La Revue de l’art ancien et moderne, vol. XLII, n˚238, Paris, 28 rue du Mont-Thabor, July-August 1922, p. 138, ill.

•Harper’s Bazaar, September 1933, p.89-90, ill.

•Sutherland, The Duke of, Looking Back: The Autobiography of the Duke of Sutherland, London: Odhams Press Ltd., 1957, facing p. 64

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 218, ill.

•László, Lucy de, 1913 diary, private collection, p. 84

KF 2016